There have been designed and created many devices to aid in the breathing of patients with impaired lungs. Some patients have sufficient breathing impairment such that they need a respiratory device that actually breathes for them. Others use oxygen masks and tubes that are designed only to supplement the oxygen intake for patients who have breathing impairment yet is still able to breathe on their own. Some of these devices are designed with an internal atomizer with the purpose of delivering a medication to the lungs of a patient in the form of an aerosol. A patient with impaired breathing can thus be given a constant supply of supplemental oxygen while at the same time be given life saving medications in an aerosol form through these prior art masks and tubes.
Current types of supplemental masks and tubes have no means to monitor whether any given medication has improved the breathing conditions of a patient. The current procedure to measure breathing function is with a spirometer. A spirometer is a calibrated measuring device intended to quantify the peak outward flow of air expelled from a patients lungs. A spirometer requires the use of voluntary muscle control in order to record a measurement. It not only requires that the patient understand and properly execute the instructions of a health care professional but, the procedure also requires a patient to remove their mask and breathe into a spirometer as hard as possible. The measured quantity is then supposed to correlate to the maximum breathing function. These two factors, understanding and exact execution, limit the effectiveness and reliability of a spirometer as consecutive measurements with a spirometer do not give consistent results. Young children are really at a disadvantage because they must be able to understand what is required to perform the measurement and then command their bodies to execute those requirements in the exact same manner as previous tests. Current testing also requires the patient to remove their life saving oxygen mask during measurement.
The measurement of voluntary breathing is unpredictable, especially in children. Current pulmonary measuring devices leave health care professionals to their own personal judgment and observation as to the condition of their patients with impaired breathing. Involuntary breathing, however, does not require a patient to understand and execute commands and will still show improvement, or lack thereof, when measured after treatment. As such, measurement of involuntary breathing avoids the understanding and execution of breathing tests, which are the main cause of unreliability. A breathing improvement monitor that measures involuntary breathing without requiring the patient to remove their mask or tube, thus maintaining oxygen flow, is needed to overcome the difficulties associated with the periodic measurement of voluntary breathing.